Solar-powered spacecraft is spinning toward Jupiter for the closest encounter with the biggest planet in our solar systemNASA’s Juno spacecraft fires its main rocket engine late Monday to slow itself down from a speed of 150,000 mph (250,000 kph) and put on orbit around Jupiter. With Juno on autopilot, the delicately choreographed move comes without any help from ground controllers.Juno is traveling through a hostile radiation environment, “but it always be able to withstand it,” said Kenny Starnes, program manager for Lockheed Martin, which built the spacecraft. Juno’s camera and other instruments were switched off for the arrival so there won’t be any pictures at the moment the spacecraft reaches its destination. Scientists have promised close-up views of Jupiter when Juno skims the cloud tops during the 20-month, $1.1 billion intention. The fifth rock from the sun and the heftiest planet in the solar system, Jupiter is what’s in order to as a gas giant a ball of hydrogen and helium unlike rocky Earth and Mars. With its billowy clouds and colorful stripes, Jupiter is an extreme world that likely formed first, shortly after the sun. Unlocking its history may hold clues to understanding how Earth and the associated with the solar system developed.
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